THE BASEMENT

date; 11/9/09

I started this site to show the design & construction decisions which lead to the finished project, including the ones I’ve decided not to go with. For about a week now I’ve been beating myself up over just how to use some of the area between the pivot frame rails below the floor. If you remember correctly, the pivot frame has 6″ rails held 3″ above the bullet chassis, hence the floor is 9″ above the truck frame. At the front of the camper, only some of that 3″ space is required for rotational clearance, so lets say I have available to me the depth of the 6″ frame plus one more inch =7″ of depth x 29″ between the rails x 37″ from the front of the camper to the first cross member. I felt like I needed to use this space below the floor for storage or utilities. After running every idea through my head, from water tank to batteries to air tank to compressor or hydraulic pump and figuring out how to step the floor system down to get this area, I’ve determined that it’s not worth the effort to get this 7″ tall space. The only area I contemplated was up toward the front of the camper which technically will be in the ‘basement’ of the camper (i’ll explain later) & too many things were going on there already, so the 7″ step down only complicated things. Part of me is relieved, as this keeps the floor system simple, the other part of me really wanted to utilize every inch of space efficiently. As it stands, I am able to get all storage & utilities into the basement without this added complexity. What I will do, is to mount an under deck air reservoir tank in this space, mounted to the underside of the floor boards, accessible only from below (but I won’t ever really need to access this). This should work out well because the air compressor will be in the basement right above this area.

The area I’m calling the basement is located up front under the portion of the queen sized bed not in the cabover, the front four feet of the camper. Under this area, I’ve designed the floor to be raised up about 16″ to get the dog beds flush with the bottom of the back window cutout (remember, so the dogs can look out the windshield as we drive) two feet of this area will be dog bed, the other two feet will be dressers facing the camper. Below this raised floor will be multiple things; a 30 gallon water tank, the air compressor, hydraulic pump & reservoir, water pump, storage for sand ladders, doors on both sides for access, with a full extension pull out drawer on one side, & slide in storage on the other. Other amenities such as batteries & electronics will be housed in two separate compartments under the bench.

One of my shop neighbors offered to paint the front wall assembly, saving me the hassle of transporting it offsite, all I had to do was wheel it down 4 doors & roll it into his shop (man did I luck out). Painting went perfectly, & this last weekend I hoisted up the assembly in the shop, got it separated from my contraption, then backed the truck under it & dropped it on the frame & permanantly mounted it on the truck. I also started bolting down the floor boards, & cut out the back three boards for the step down.

the front wall assembly suspended in the shop

lowering the front wall onto the truck

starting to mount down the floor boards

the floor deck permanently mounted (with the cutout for the step down)

yesterday, while dropping off the drawings for the step down- stair mount with jake @ mill sprocket, randy called from harvest valley, saying all his pieces were ready, so I stopped by & picked up the fuel can holders, spare tire mount, & upper lights. All, of course, look great. I’ve got just a little body work smoothing out some welds & getting them paint ready,This gives me something to work on while the step down is being made.